Chapter Eleven

The Romulan scout ship was nowhere to be seen, which was also as Picard expected; it was cloaked, also at the admiral’s request.

Picard deplored having to take these sorts of precautions, but he understood their occasional necessity. During the trip back to the Enterprise, Batanides had made it clear to Commander Roget that his officers weren’t to speak to anyone about the scoutship. Given the fragile complexities of Chiarosan geopolitics, Picard thought her mandate for discretion was probably the wisest course. And despite his reticence about illegally operating a cloaking device, Picard nevertheless thought it prudent to give the Romulan vessel as low a profile as possible while it was aboard the Enterprise.

Picard tapped his combadge. “Number One, two to beam aboard the scoutship.”

“Acknowledged, Captain,” came the reply.

A moment later, Picard and Batanides stood in the small Romulan engine room, where Data, La Forge, and Zweller labored over a partially disassembled computer core. The three officers noted the presence of Picard and Batanides, but went back to their work after the captain made a subtle “as you were” gesture.

Riker, who was standing nearby, approached Picard and Batanides.

“Progress report, Number One,” Picard said.

“First, we’ve managed to stop the flow of tetryons from the warp core.”

“Good,” Picard said. “Those emissions might have defeated the purpose of activating the cloaking device.”

Batanides looked thoughtful. “This ship makes me wonder about something Ruardh said about the referendum.”

“What do you mean?” Picard said.

“I mean that if the outcome really could hinge on our producing proof that the Romulans are really the ones who are up to no good here . . .” Batanides made a broad gesture encompassing the entire room, then said, “. . . well, what more proof do we need than this ship?”

Zweller approached, shaking his head. “If we try to use this ship to prove that the Romulans have been backing the rebels, I think it’ll strike most Chiarosans as a bit too convenient.”

“How so?” Batanides said.

“I took a moment to review the electoral poll data,” Zweller said. “The Chiarosan electorate is a skeptical lot. Most of the voting populace thinks we’re so desperate, that we’d say or do just about anything in order to win them over now.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Picard said.

Batanides shook her head. “Very well. But I think you may be punting too early in the game.”

“Admiral, I think we have to look at the big picture here very carefully,” Picard said. “We mustn’t forget that the election is only a small part of the Romulans’ real agenda. I suspect that what they’re really after remains hidden elsewhere in the Chiaros system.”

“You mean behind the energy field,” Riker said, as La Forge and Data set aside their task and approached.

“Exactly, Number One. We may have to accept that the referendum is already lost. Therefore that ship will provide a tactical advantage rather than a political one.”

“You want to keep it in reserve,” La Forge said, smiling. “A ‘hole card.’ ”

“That’s right,” Picard said to the engineer. “And I want you and Data to find a way to play that card to our best advantage. We can use this ship to see what the Romulans are up to behind that energy barrier. And perhaps, if necessary, to put a stop to it.”

Batanides didn’t look entirely convinced. “If the referendum is already lost, then two days is all we have. That’s pretty slim timing.”

“We’ve done more with a great deal less,” Picard said.

“I must point out,” Data said, “that if we take the scoutship into the region the Romulans are concealing, we will not have the advantage of surprise. The Romulans are no doubt well aware that we have taken this craft. They are certain to be ready for us.”

Picard smiled. “Well, I didn’t say it would be easy, Mr. Data. Consider it a challenge.”

“I do indeed, sir.”

“We’ll get right on it, Captain,” La Forge said. “We can also modify another probe to look inside the energy screen, to get a better handle on what the scoutship’s got in store for it.”

Picard nodded his approval. “Make it so.” Geordi and Data excused themselves and returned to their work.

Zweller remained behind, looking intrigued. “I’d like to know more about this energy field you keep referring to, Johnny,” he said to Picard.

Picard studied his old Academy friend’s eager expression. Ordinarily, his impulse would have been to tell him everything he knew. But during the flight back to the Enterprise, he had seen how Zweller’s own colleagues had distrusted him. Riker, Troi, and Dr. Gomp had made him aware of their suspicions that Zweller had illegally aided the Chiarosan rebels; Gomp had even gone so far as to suggest that Zweller had prearranged their capture by the Army of Light.

Batanides was evidently having the same misgivings. “You’ll be briefed in due course, Commander,” she said coolly. “In the meantime, there are a few questions we need to ask you.”

Picard couldn’t have agreed more.

Turning back toward Riker, he said, “Please ask Counselor Troi to come to my ready room, Number One. Immediately.”

“What the hell kind of reunion is this anyway, Johnny?” Zweller said, looking surprised. “What exactly is going on here?”

“That’s something I’d like to know as well.” Picard spread his hands across the ready-room desk and settled back in his chair. Batanides and Troi sat on the sofa on the other side of the small room. Both women were looking intently at Zweller, who stood with his arms at his sides, fists clenched.

“Your shipmates have leveled some very serious charges at you, Corey,” Batanides said.

“Is this an interrogation, Marta?” Zweller said angrily.

Picard sighed. He would have thought that forty-plus years of starship duty might have mellowed his old friend’s youthful hotheadedness.

“No one is interrogating you, Corey,” Batanides said, leaving an unspoken but obvious yet hanging in the air.

“Nevertheless,” Picard said, “these charges are serious, and must be answered. And there’s also the matter of your DNA having been found on the combadges we recovered after the fight in HagratÈ. The circumstantial evidence would suggest that it was you who removed those combadges from Commander Riker and Counselor Troi after they were struck unconscious in the melee.”

“I noticed that Chiarosan disruptors can lock onto subspace signals,” Zweller said, nodding. To Troi, he added, “Don’t bother to thank me for saving your lives.”

Picard considered that for a moment. “If that’s so, then you certainly have earned my thanks. But Counselor Troi and Commander Riker have both told me that Grelun granted you privileges that he denied to his other prisoners. So I still must ask you: Did you supply arms or assistance to the Army of Light?”

Zweller pointed at Troi. “Why don’t you get the answer from your Betazoid? You obviously don’t have any faith that I’m going to tell you the truth, or else you wouldn’t have sicced a telepath on me.”

“I’m only half-Betazoid, Mr. Zweller,” Troi said calmly. “I can only pick up emotions, not specific thoughts.”

“And what is it you’re ‘picking up’ from me?”

“I sense mainly that you are a master of evasion. As well as a skilled manipulator of people. And of the truth.”

“Come now, Counselor,” Zweller said, his lips turning upward in an asymmetrical half-smile. “In my experience, that description could fit just about any front-line Starfleet officer who’s managed to stay alive as long as I have. Present company excepted, of course.”

Picard bridled at Zweller’s verbal jab, but said nothing. There was no point in allowing his old friend to provoke him into losing control of the conversation. Batanides also allowed the comment to pass unanswered.

“Commander,” Troi said, unflappably patient, “I’ve known ever since we were confined together that you’ve been concealing something significant. All I’ve ever sensed from you is a superficial emotional veneer, almost as though you were able to consciously block my empathic abilities.”

Zweller adopted a sincere expression that belied his words. “Now that would be a remarkable talent. On the other hand, I may just be an extremely shallow person. Maybe there’s nothing underneath that ‘emotional veneer,’ as you call it.”

Or perhaps it conceals hidden compartments, Picard thought. Like a smuggler’s cargo hold.

Turning toward Picard, Troi said, “I don’t think I’m going to be of any help to you here, Captain. Perhaps it would be better if I started interviewing the other Slayton survivors instead.”

“Very well,” Picard said. “Make it so.”

As Troi got up to leave the ready room, Zweller spoke to her back. “Good idea, Counselor. I knew you’d get around to helping those traumatized people eventually.”

Troi paused in the open doorway for a moment as though contemplating a rejoinder. Then, apparently realizing the futility of the gesture, she departed.

Picard was alone with his two oldest friends for the first time in more than four decades. It struck him then just how profoundly time could change a man. Yes, this Corey Zweller was still a hothead, as he had been at Starfleet Academy; but the loyal, to-Hell-and-back Cortin Zweller, the comrade-at-arms who had fought the Nausicaans at Bonestell so long ago, that Cortin Zweller had never made such blatant stabs at a colleague’s emotional buttons.

“Corey . . . did you give the rebels weapons?” Batanides said, beginning to lose her patience.

Zweller answered with exasperating serenity. “Don’t you think Grelun would have shown me a little more gratitude if I had?”

“Not if he thought you were selling him out to Ruardh,” Picard said.

Zweller sat down in one of the seats between the sofa and Picard’s desk. Focusing his gaze on the viewport, he said, “Grelun suffers from a freedom fighter’s paranoia. When he caught me hacking into the rebel base’s command systems, he naturally assumed the worst.”

“And why were you doing that?” Batanides said.

“I was a prisoner, just like my crewmates. And a prisoner’s first duty is to escape.”

Batanides studied him with obvious skepticism. “Some of your crewmates don’t seem to believe that, Corey. Dr. Gomp told me that you’d received special treatment from your jailers all along.”

“Must have been that vaunted ‘mastery of manipulation’ the counselor says I excel in,” Zweller said dismissively. Turning toward Picard, he said, “C’mon, Johnny, don’t tell me you’ve never charmed your way into an adversary’s good graces before turning the tables on him.”

Picard felt his own fund of patience beginning to run out. “Not by violating my oath as a Starfleet officer.”

“If I did bend a regulation or two,” Zweller said, “then you can rest assured that I did it in the service of a greater good.”

“You mean the Army of Light’s struggle against Ruardh’s government,” Batanides said.

“If you like,” replied Zweller quietly, nodding slightly.

Batanides scowled. “I thought you said Grelun was an adversary.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what that means, isn’t it?” Zweller said tartly. “You won’t find any angels on Chiaros IV, Marta. Everyone’s hands get bloody in a civil war.”

How ironic, Picard thought, that Chiarosan blood is gray.

He decided to try a placating tone. “Corey, please. You have to admit that you aren’t being very forthcoming. You still haven’t answered our primary question. For the sake of the friendship the three of us shared, I would have hoped that you’d—”

Zweller interrupted gently. “That’s exactly why I can’t tell you anything more, Johnny. If you keep probing into whatever I might or might not have done down there, you’re only going to put yourselves in harm’s way. Frankly, I’d prefer it if you didn’t do that.”

“Corey, that almost sounds like a threat,” Picard said, taken aback.

Zweller shook his head, then paused to gather his thoughts. “Could I speak absolutely candidly to both of you for a moment?” he said finally.

“That would be a nice change,” Batanides said. She was not smiling.

“All you have is the hearsay of two of your officers and the word of an obstreperous Tellarite doctor against mine. You’ve got no proof of anything—even with an empath in the room! So if you’re not prepared to arrest me and convene a general hearing, I respectfully suggest that you both let this matter lie.”

Picard watched as Batanides silently fumed. He realized that Zweller had outmaneuvered them. For now.

“All right, Corey,” Picard said at length. “I will put this matter aside. But only until Grelun or some of your colleagues from the Slayton can shed some more light onto it.”

“Thank you,” Zweller said, his emotions inaccessible.

“You are dismissed, Commander,” Batanides said icily.

Pained that his old friend would not reach out to him, Picard watched in silence as Zweller exited the ready room.

Feeling weary, Zweller entered the quarters Riker had issued him. Picard’s first officer had strongly suggested that he remain there pending the resolution of the political business on Chiaros IV. Noting that he didn’t actually seem to be under arrest, Zweller decided he was too tired to argue the point tonight. He’d take the matter up directly with Johnny in the morning.

Ensconced in his quarters, Zweller contacted La Forge to request information about the huge volume of space the Romulans were apparently concealing. Though the engineer had seemed a bit overworked and harried, he had promptly uploaded the relevant observational data into Zweller’s computer terminal. Though there was no conclusive information about what the Romulans were doing behind the vast invisibility screen they had constructed out in the Chiaros system’s far reaches, they were clearly using it to hide an artificial construct of some sort.

Zweller waded through the data late into the ship’s night, a worm of apprehension turning deep in his gut as he read. The Slayton ’s crew had not detected the cloaking field before Zweller and his crewmates had taken the shuttlecraft Archimedes down to Chiaros IV.

If they had, Zweller thought as sleep finally began to take him, then Section 31 might never have struck its deal with Koval.

Picard was not surprised in the least to learn that Romulan Ambassador T’Alik wished to meet with him. What did surprise him was that the ambassador had waited an entire day to respond to his acquisition of the officially nonexistent Romulan scoutship.

It was shortly after 0800 when Batanides and Troi entered the ready room, where Picard was already seated behind his desk, sipping a cup of Earl Grey. Lieutenant Daniels signaled from the bridge that the Romulan delegation had been beamed aboard and was on its way.

Picard smiled over his teacup at the two women, who seated themselves on the ready-room couch.

“This should be good,” Picard said, smiling mischievously for a moment before restoring the impassive demeanor of interstellar diplomacy. Troi and Batanides did likewise.

Moments later, a pair of security guards escorted T’Alik and her assistant, V’Riln, into Picard’s ready room. Picard noted that V’Riln was the very same Romulan whose life he had saved during the armed contretemps in HagratÈ. V’Riln nodded curtly to him, but there was no hint of gratitude in his eyes. You’re quite welcome, the captain thought wryly.

Picard did not rise from his chair, nor did he offer T’Alik or V’Riln a place to sit. He knew there was nothing to be gained by making them unnecessarily comfortable.

“Madame Ambassador,” Picard said simply.

“Captain,” the Romulan responded, unsmiling.

“Allow me to introduce Vice-Admiral Batanides of Starfleet Intelligence. And you have already met my ship’s counselor, Commander Troi.”

T’Alik bowed her head in courtly fashion. “Admiral. Counselor.”

V’Riln cast a sour glance at Troi. “I wish we had been advised of your intention to bring a Betazoid to this meeting, Captain. Perhaps we would have furnished a telepath of our own.”

“Surely that would be unnecessary, Mr. V’Riln,” Picard said, deliberately adopting the smile of a magnanimous host. “After all, what do either of us have to hide from each other?”

Troi’s expression told Picard that she could probably spend several hours answering that single question. Batanides, for her part, seemed content to let Picard do all the talking. She sat in silence, watching the Romulans closely.

“Please allow me to come to the heart of the reason for this visit,” T’Alik said.

“I would appreciate that, Ambassador,” Picard said. “We only have one day left before the planetary referendum, so time is fleeting. And I suppose you’ve read the polls.”

T’Alik almost smiled at that. “We are well-aware of the referendum’s likely outcome. And frankly, I have come to ask you to concede those results sooner rather than later. After all, no purpose can be served by waiting until the bitter end.”

“The writing, as you humans say, is on the wall,” V’Riln said.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Picard said, smiling. He hoped to throw them off-balance. “It might do my crew some good to leave this dreary region a day or so early.”

“That would be a great relief, Captain,” Troi said, falling in step.

Picard smiled at the counselor, well aware that the relief Troi had just registered was not her own; T’Alik was evidently both surprised and pleased to hear that the Enterprise might be leaving early.

Perhaps she sees that as a sign that we won’t embarrass her in front of the Chiarosans by unveiling the unauthorized ship we captured.

That was the moment when V’Riln floored him.

“The Tal Shiar has informed us that you still have the scoutship you used to escape from the Army of Light’s Nightside compound,” the Romulan assistant said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Picard did his best to hide his surprise. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

T’Alik did not appear fazed in the least by her assistant’s revelation. Picard supposed that their presentation had been well-rehearsed for maximum emotional impact.

“No, Captain,” the ambassador said with a faint smile. “I don’t suppose that you do. But I must tell you that I am delighted to hear you say it.”

“I’m sure if we were to discover any unauthorized Romulan vessels on Chiaros IV,” Picard deadpanned, “it would greatly complicate your mission here.”

“Indeed it would,” T’Alik said.

Picard put on his most solicitous expression. “And it would probably place you, personally, in an extremely awkward position.”

“It would force the ambassador to protest the actions of her own government, Captain,” V’Riln said haughtily.

T’Alik began to look ever-so-slightly uncomfortable. “In the event of any such discovery, Captain, I would likely have no choice other than to resign my post. As a fellow diplomat, I’m sure you can understand that I cannot be a party to a treaty violation, either official or otherwise.”

Picard smiled broadly. “Madame Ambassador, as a fellow diplomat, I wouldn’t dream of placing you in that position.”

“I’m delighted that we understand each other so well, Captain,” T’Alik said, bowing her head fractionally.

And with that, the Romulan diplomats said their short but polite farewells, then allowed the security officers to escort them out of the ready room.

“Well,” Troi said. “Now we know that they know we have the scoutship.”

“Data was right,” Batanides said. “Whatever we decide to do with that ship, I suppose we can forget about having the element of surprise.”

“I’d already accepted that as a given,” Picard said, frowning. “But if there’s a way around that problem, Geordi and Data will find it.”

“For some reason, our continued presence is making the Romulans very nervous,” Troi ventured.

Batanides nodded. “It can only have to do with whatever the Romulans are hiding behind their cloaking field.”

Picard rose from behind his desk and walked over to the viewport. The darkness outside was punctuated by thousands of distant pinpoints of light.

For a long moment, he silently contemplated the loss of three wide, nominally empty sectors of space to the Romulans. He found the notion unacceptable. He suddenly couldn’t stomach the thought of losing anything to such Machiavellian schemers.

“I quite agree,” Picard said with determination. “This has all gone on long enough. One way or another, we’re going to find out what’s behind that cloak.”